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FirmWorks Files Documentation

Documentation for FirmWorks Files, the native Salesforce application for storing, tagging, finding and sharing files.

FirmWorks Files

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File Events

Salesforce does not allow record-triggered flows on the Files objects. File Events fills that gap by publishing Platform Events whenever a Content Document, Content Version or Content Document Link is inserted, updated, deleted or undeleted. You subscribe to those events with Platform Event Triggered Flows, Apex, or the Pub/Sub API and build automation from them.

For reference, here is how the Salesforce Files objects relate to each other and to FirmWorks Files.

Salesforce file structure

Setup

File Events is part of the FirmWorks Files package. Two things must be true before events publish:

  1. The File Platform Events license feature is on. FirmWorks enables this per customer. When it is off, the Configurator’s File Events tab shows “FirmWorks File Events Is Not Enabled! Please Contact FirmWorks to Enable this Feature”. Contact support@getfirmworks.com.
  2. The events you want are turned on. All events are off after installation. See the next section.

Users who build flows on these events or call the deleted-document actions need the FirmWorks File Events permission set. It is included in every FirmWorks Files permission set group. See Permissions and Licensing.

Turning events on and off

Open the FirmWorks Files Configurator tab and choose the File Events tab. There are three cards, one per object:

Card Toggles Publishes
ContentDocument Triggers After Insert, After Update, After Delete, After Undelete Content Document Event
ContentVersion Triggers After Insert, After Update Content Version Event
ContentDocumentLink Triggers After Insert, After Update, After Delete Content Document Link Event

Turn on the toggles you need and click Save on that card. The setting deploys as a custom metadata record and the card shows “Saved!” when it is done.

Turning everything off for an object stops that object’s trigger from publishing. This is useful during bulk data loads, when you may not want thousands of flows to fire.

Behind the tab, the toggles write the Content Apex Trigger Setting custom metadata type (EV_Apex_Trigger_Setting__mdt). You can also edit its three records, Content_Document_Events, Content_Version_Events and Content_Document_Link_Events, in Setup > Custom Metadata Types. The Service Class field names the Apex class that handles the trigger; leave it blank to use the packaged handler, or name your own class that implements the firmworks.EV_ITriggerService interface.

Building a Platform Event Triggered Flow

If you are new to flows, Salesforce’s Automate Business Processes trail is a good start.

  1. Setup > Flows > New Flow > Platform Event-Triggered Flow.
  2. Choose one of the FirmWorks events: Content Document Event, Content Document Link Event or Content Version Event.
  3. Build the flow as you would a record-triggered flow. The event’s fields are available on $Record.

Platform event triggered flow

Choosing a FirmWorks event

Which event to use:

The package includes a template for each event. Open Setup > Flows > Templates, save a copy, and adapt it. See Flow Templates and Invocable Actions.

Event reference

All three events carry an Action field naming the trigger context, and the Ids needed to look up the affected records.

Content Document Event

Field Meaning
Action afterInsert, afterUpdate, afterDelete or afterUndelete.
Content Document Id The file. On afterDelete the record is already gone; see Deleted files.

Content Document Link Event

Field Meaning
Action afterInsert, afterUpdate or afterDelete. Undelete is not available for this object.
Content Document Id The file.
Content Document Link Id The link record.
Linked Entity Id The record the file was linked to. This is polymorphic, so check the Id prefix or object type before using a Get Records element on it.

Deleting a file does not fire a delete event for each of its links. Use the Content Document Event’s afterDelete for that case.

Content Version Event

Field Meaning
Action afterInsert or afterUpdate.
Content Document Id The file.
Content Version Id The version. Tag fields live on the Content Version. Use this Id to read or update tags.

afterInsert fires for the first version and every new version uploaded. For “a new file was created”, the Content Document Event is simpler because it fires once per file.

Deleted files

A flow cannot query a deleted record, so a Content Document Event with action afterDelete gives you an Id you cannot look up. Two invocable actions in the Files category solve this:

Both take a Content Document Id. The Content Document Event flow template shows them in use. Details are in Flow Templates and Invocable Actions.

Considerations

Content Download Events

A separate, unmanaged package can publish an event whenever a file’s contents are downloaded. It is available on request from support@getfirmworks.com. Each event records who downloaded the file, when, which file, and how (Salesforce UI, public link, REST API, SOQL and so on).

Content Download Events

Example event from a download in the Salesforce interface:

{
  "CreatedById": "005Ea000003z4szIAA",
  "firmworks__Content_Id__c": "068Ea000000nqa9IAA",
  "CreatedDate": "2023-11-30T00:01:32Z",
  "firmworks__Context__c": "S1"
}

Example from a public link download. Created By is the user who created the link:

{
  "CreatedById": "005Ea000003z64hIAA",
  "firmworks__Content_Id__c": "068Ea000000nqQTIAY",
  "CreatedDate": "2023-11-30T00:20:39Z",
  "firmworks__Context__c": "DELIVERY"
}

Context values are CHATTER, CONTENT, DELIVERY, REST_API, RETRIEVE, S1 and SOQL.